A lot of people are wanting to start a homestead this year, or at least want to start living a more self-sufficient lifestyle. But, not many people are in a stage of life that allows them to make this dream a reality right now. Even though you may not be able to physically work on it, there are still ways you can work on your homestead before you even have one.
I’m currently in the waiting stage of starting a homestead. Once we are married we will have a small piece of land that we plan to grow food and raise a few types of animals on. For now, though, we have to wait. During that time there are still a lot of ways we can prepare for and work on our homestead even though we can’t physically work on the land yet. We’re currently working on renovating the house (look out for renovation posts soon), but I don’t want to waste this time by not also preparing for the garden and animals that we will hopefully be able to get in the next year or so. So, here are the things I’m doing now to work on my homestead before I really even have one.
one // Research
This one may seem obvious, but it’s so easy to waste the time you have before a goal or dream of yours becomes a reality. Jessica Sowards from Roots and Refuge Farm always says to make your waiting room your classroom. If you take that time to learn as much as you can about homesteading, you will save so much time and hassle once you have one to physically work on. There are so many resources out there when it comes to homesteading and homemaking. You can find books on pretty much any topic, and there are tons of blogs, YouTube channels, and Instagram accounts out there as well that provide so much free information. Here are some of the things I’m learning about right now:
- The best way to layout your land
- Regenerative Gardening
- No-Dig Gardening
- Composting
- Companion planting
- Growing medicinal herbs
- Raising chickens
- How to let your chickens free range while still protecting them from predators
- How to get your chickens to keep laying eggs during the winter
- Raising turkeys
- Raising goats & sheep
two // plan
Once you have decent knowledge on certain subjects, you can start to plan things out. For example, I already have gardening experience, so I can start planning out my garden now to save time in the future once things are busier with the homestead. I can do things like plan out what fruits, vegetables, and herbs I want to grow, how I’m going to set up my garden, when I’m going to plant things, and what the layout of my garden should look like. These are all things that don’t require me to have access to my land already. I can easily plan them out now and then flesh those plans out later on once I’m able to. Check out this post I made last year on how to plan out a garden.
three // save
This one also may be obvious, but you can start saving for different projects you plan to work on once you have your homestead. Starting up a homestead is an investment. In the long run, it’s well worth it, but the majority of the money is put in up front. Once you have an idea of the things you want to do with your land and knowledge on how to do them, you can start looking into what those things will cost and saving up accordingly.
four // buy
If you have somewhere to put it, there’s quite a lot of things you can buy ahead of time as well. It’s really easy to buy furniture and house stuff, especially if you already have a house in which you can use it for now. You can also buy things for your garden and animals. One thing I really recommend buying early are seeds. Now that a lot of people are growing their own food, seeds tend to go out of stock very quickly, especially non-GMO and heirloom seeds. Buying things over a longer period of time will also be better financially instead of buying everything all at once whenever you need it. (Unless you’re really good at saving up for specific things).
five // work
There are a lot of things you can work on and practice for wherever you’re living right now. No matter how small your yard is, or even if you live in an apartment and don’t have a yard at all, you can start growing vegetables. Start small now so that you’ll be ready for a bigger garden when you have the land for it. You can grow a few types of vegetables in the ground, build a raised bed garden, or even grow some fruit trees or vining vegetables in pots on your patio.
Many cities allow you to have chickens in your back yard, so this is also something you can do before you have a lot of land. Of course, you need to check to see if your city allows it and if there are any special rules involved. But if you can do it (and if chickens are an animal you’d want on your homestead), I’d say go for it!
It’s also never too early to start working towards living a more self-sufficient lifestyle. You can start practicing things like cooking food from scratch, herbalism, DIYs, making a sourdough starter, learning how to sew, and many other things that are great skills to have as a homemaker and homesteader.
That’s all the tips I have for today. I plan to share more homestead-related content as I learn more about these things myself and start to work on our homestead. Until then, remember to make your waiting room a classroom. Thanks for reading!
